


A Rogue Day

by Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds



Series: A Rogue Day [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tim Drake is Bad at Self-Care, Tim Drake is Red Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds/pseuds/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds
Summary: Tim's not having a great day. But when an Arkham breakout happens and rogues get ideas, it's only going to get worse (though not in the way he expected...)
Series: A Rogue Day [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1935070
Comments: 12
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another distraction from my Works in Progress, this is an idea I had a little while ago and decided to try and get written. It's probably going to be around three or so chapters long in total.

Tim had just finished writing up his report on the drug case which had taken him days to pull off, when his alarm clock started going off. He never had found time to actually go to bed. Again. Tim sighed to himself. There wasn't much he could do about that now. Maybe he'd be lucky and have a quiet day in the office, and actually find time for a nap ( _pah, when had he ever been lucky?)_. He made himself another coffee to drink whilst he forced himself into a designer suit, and poured yet another into his travel mug to drink on the drive in.

When he reached his desk, his in-tray seemed piled even higher than usual, as if, rather than cutting him some slack, considering he'd only had 3 hours of sleep in the past 72, the universe had instead set out to spite him. He'd barely made a dent into it before he had to go and sit through a board meeting where Paulson seemed to be acting even more like an obnoxious prat than usual, Taylor made three cracks about Tim's age, and he had to spend 45 minutes convincing the group why they shouldn't just vote down his new green initiative, when any idiot would realise it would save the company money (as well as benefit the environment, because Tim wasn't deluded enough to think most of them cared about the latter) if they spent five minutes actually reading the proposal he'd written.

After that torture of a meeting was _finally_ over (Tim had literally had days where he'd been tortured that he'd enjoyed more), he had to get himself out of the office, even if just for five minutes (his schedule wouldn't afford him more than that). He staggered his way to the fancy coffee house across the street to get himself a rather expensive (but delicious) travel mug full of practically pure caffeine. The queue was longer than expected (apparently the place had some kind of promotion on), so he ended up leaning on a column as he waited, fighting the urge to fall asleep against it (because that would be a terribly uncouth thing to do in public). The queue moved down and he pushed himself back up to fully vertical, but apparently his brain hadn't informed his blood of that, and he staggered as it all decided to flow away from his head, leaving sparks in his vision. He managed to catch himself on the column that had formally been his resting place, but not without catching the attention of at least one of the other patrons of the establishment. An older woman, who had been behind him in the queue, managed to materialise a chair out of seemingly nowhere, shoving him down into it, keeping hold of one of his wrists and taking his pulse from it. He tried to gently push her away, insisting he was fine, just tired. He could tell his blood no longer had a problem entering his head; he could feel his cheeks turning bright red in a flush of embarrassment.

"Young man, I'm a nurse. Let me check you're alright."

"I'm fine. I just need a coffee."

"You do _not_ need a coffee. Your pulse is racing. It's..." (she paused for a few seconds, timing it against her watch) "...about 120 beats per minute. Do you want me to call..."

"No, thank you," he insisted, cutting her off. He stood up and walked out, feeling eyes watching him. The inferior coffee from his office coffee machine would have to do.

The rest of the afternoon was rather uneventful, boring in fact. Tim worked his way through his mountain of paperwork until it looked like he might finally reach the bottom of it. He was distracted from his current form by Tam poking her head round the door, asking if he was heading home soon. He glanced at the clock on his computer; it was 7pm ( _what do you know, time flies when you're not having fun!?_ ). Well, that was his pre-patrol nap rather scuppered. Even if he skipped dinner, he still wouldn't have chance to get his head down for long before it was time to head on out again.

It felt like he'd only just dropped off to sleep when he was awoken by an alert on his phone. He half wanted to just sack off patrol and go back to sleep. At least until he read his phone notification. There had been a Arkham breakout; Mr Freeze, The Riddler and ( _oh great!_ ) The Joker were reported to be on the loose. It would be a all-hands-on-deck situation. Tim's sleep would have to wait.

30 minutes later and Red Robin was scoping out one of Gotham's many abandoned warehouses. Oracle had made a list of the most likely hiding places of the missing rogues, and had deployed the Batclan accordingly. He was fairly certain this warehouse was empty. It looked like no one had used it in decades. Vegetation was starting to reclaim the concrete. Tim started sarcastically commenting to himself about the glamourous locations he spent his nights exploring. _"I imagine this is not the kind of place the public assumes Timothy Drake-Wayne spends his evenings..."_

If he'd been less sleep deprived, then maybe he might have pondered the significance of the amount of vegetation in the place, and how long the warehouse would have had been unsolicited by Gotham's vast criminal element, for it to have grown naturally. He might also have noticed the plants behind him growing upwards and reaching towards him. He might have put this together with the fact that the escapees from Arkham today weren't the only rogues on the loose at present. That Poison Ivy had been free for a few weeks (and keeping a suspiciously low profile). If he had, then maybe he might have radioed his suspicions in. He might not have been caught out by suddenly finding a plant in his face. He might have put his rebreather on ready.

Alas, he didn't...

\---


	2. Chapter 2

Tim found himself gradually swimming back into consciousness feeling surprisingly well rested. That was the first sign something was up. When did he ever feel _well-rested_? And the gradual awakening was a rarity too. Normally he was awoken by his too-soon alarm clock or some impending disaster.

He was still wearing his Red Robin suit, he realised. Not a complete unknown, but times he awoke in it, he wasn't usually this comfy (either having passed out on his couch, too tired/injured to make it out of his costume and into his bed, or worse, having passed out whilst out on patrol).

He opened his eyes, to find himself looking at a rather drab industrial-looking ceiling. He was lying in a _nest (?)_ made of leaves. _What the hell?_ He was suddenly reminded of the events leading up to his awakening here _. Crap_. This was all beginning to smell like a Poison Ivy plot.

Speaking of...

"Ivy!" a loud voice proclaimed from somewhere below where Tim was lying, "I think our baby bird's awake!" _Oh no_ , Tim thought, _I know that voice..._

Sure enough, he soon found himself looking across at Harley Quinn (the owner of said voice) and Poison Ivy, stood on a leaf platform that Ivy had risen up from the floor (which, as he found out when he peered over the edge of his nest, was a long way down). He started searching through his costume for weapons, coming up blank. All of his pockets appeared to be empty.

"Looking for your toys?" Ivy asked. "Sorry, we had to confiscate them."

"But don't worry!" Harley reassured. "I've got you a new one!" Tim found himself flinching as she threw something towards him, catching it apprehensively. It was a little soft toy hyena. "We'll get you some more tomorrow!" _Tomorrow? How long were they planning on keeping him there!?_

"What do you want? Why am I here?" he asked them.

"We rescued you!" Harley enthusiastically replied.

"Rescued?"

"Yes. Clearly Batsy's doing a bad job at looking after his little birdies, and now Mister J's on the loose, I said we had to do something!"

"Harley decided you were in need of an intervention," Ivy added.

"What? Why?"

"Why? Surely that's obvious. Capturing you was even easier than I expected. Did you even spot my plants in that warehouse? Never mind The Joker, you'd have been taken down by The Riddler. Hell, even Condiment King could have got you."

"Well, a) that's not true, and b) how is that your business?"

"Well, yes, arguably it's not. But Harley's decided that fixing you up is our latest project, and too be honest, I'm bored, and it's healthier than some of her other ideas, no offence flower," [she said as an aside to Harley] "so why not?"

"I'm not, what, your fixer-up project!" Tim exclaimed.

"Does somebody need another nap?" Harley simpered.

"No!"

"You probably do. You're clearly not sleeping enough," Ivy replied. "Seriously, before we found you, when was the last time you'd slept? Because it had obviously been a while."

Tim decided not to deign that with a reply. The villains looked patiently amused by that. Poison Ivy started moving more plants around, propelling one to deliver a bowl across to Tim's nest.

"Speaking of obviously having been a while, you're clearly not eating enough either," she complained. "Eat." Tim peered into the bowl, to see a large salad of some kind, but made no move to take it. "Go on. You need to eat."

"I'm not eating that."

"Why? You can't say you're not hungry." A look passed between them. "Oh, what, you think we're going to poison you? Come on, I thought you were meant to be the smart one? (Not that you've been using those brains of yours very well recently...) You know that if I wanted to poison you, I have much easier methods of doing so than persuading you to eat it. Now be a good boy and eat your meal."

"Or does baby bird need us to feed him?" Harley added.

Tim considered his options. He _could_ eat the salad (Ivy had made a good point, it _probably_ wasn't poisoned). He could continue to refuse (and hence perhaps end up being fed like a child by Harley Quinn). He could throw the bowl on the floor (and risk angering his captors).

He was distracted from his decision by a new arrival...


	3. Chapter 3

"Pam, Harley..." the new arrival called out.

"Selina!" Harley excitedly exclaimed. "Look who we've got joining us!" Poison Ivy did her thing with her plants once more, and soon Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) was rising up to join her fellow rogues. A look of surprise crossed her face as she made eye-contact with Tim, realising Red Robin was the guest Harley was referring to.

"What's he doing here?" she asked.

"We're going to look after him!" her friend replied. "Think of him as a poor lost kitten that we've rescued."

"But he's not a kitten. He's a little birdy. I thought we were trying to stay under the radar? The Bat doesn't like it when people take his things."

"I'm not a child!" Tim protested. "I can look after myself. I don't need you guys, or Batman for that matter! Now, will you let me go!? I have a job to be getting on with!"

"But can you look after yourself?" Ivy asked.

"Yes! I've been doing so for years! I am more than capable of making my own life decisions. Thank you for... the sentiment... I guess, but I'll be going now." He started looking over the edge of his leaf nest once more. They'd taken his grapple gun, and it was clearly too far to just jump, but maybe he could climb down, 'Jack and the Beanstalk' style? He was distracted from his planning by hearing Catwoman coughing something that sounded suspiciously like "coffee shop". They made eye contact. She shot him a knowing smirk. _Great. How did she know about that?_ He knew she knew his secret identity, but did that mean the world knew about Timothy Drake-Wayne almost passing out in a coffee shop? _Fantastic._ He could picture the field day Vicki Vale would have at that news...

"How long's he been here?" Catwoman asked after a short while, another train of thought clearly having crossed her mind.

"Just under 12 hours," Ivy replied. _12 hours!!!!_

"Well, I guess that explains why the Bats are flapping around Gotham so much. I'd assumed it was just Joker being out that had ruffled their fur, but if Joker's out _and_ one of their colony's mysteriously absent, well..." _Urgh._ Tim is _so dead_ when he finally manages to get back to the cave...

Selina took out her phone.

"What are you doing?" Ivy asked. "You're not calling Bats, are you?"

"Yeah, what about sisters over misters!?" Harley added.

"I'm not calling him for his benefit. I'm calling for ours. Rumour on the street is that the Joker was in traction when he got dumped back at Arkham tonight. I told you, Bats don't like it when people take his things. We don't want to be in the middle of him and one of his birds."

"But what about..." Harley started.

"Harls," Selina interrupted her, "I'll get you a new kitten instead. Now come on, let's get out of here. We don't want to be around when he gets this text." Ivy nodded in agreement and started lowering the three of them down to the ground. Harley looked disappointed but didn't protest.

"Oi! What about me?" Tim shouted down at them, still stuck in his nest.

"I'm sure Daddy-bats will be here soon to get you down," Catwoman smirked.

"In the meantime, eat your salad!" Poison Ivy instructed. With that, the three female rogues left the building, leaving Tim to ponder how much shit he was going to get from his family from this. He threw himself back down in his nest in frustration. _"I'm never going to hear the end of this..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up a bit fluffier than I originally intended...
> 
> At some point, I might add a chapter or two from the point of view of the rest of the Bats (which will probably be angstier), if people would be interested in that?


End file.
